A data center may be defined as a location, for instance, a room that houses computer systems arranged in a number of racks. A standard rack, for instance, an electronics cabinet, is defined as an Electronics Industry Association (EIA) enclosure, 78 in. (2 meters) wide, 24 in. (0.61 meter) wide and 30 in. (0.76 meter) deep. These racks are configured to house a number of computer systems, about forty (40) systems, with future configurations of racks being designed to accommodate 200 or more systems. The computer systems typically dissipate relatively significant amounts of heat during the operation of the respective components. For example, a typical computer system comprising multiple microprocessors may dissipate approximately 250 W of power. Thus, a rack containing forty (40) computer systems of this type may dissipate approximately 10 KW of power.
Conventional data centers are typically equipped with a raised floor and ventilation tiles configured to provide cool air to the computer systems from a pressurized plenum in the space below the raised floor. Due to varying airflow patterns generated by multiple air conditioning units and non-uniform heat transfer from the plenum, temperatures often vary in different regions of the plenum. The different temperatures often lead to thermal management issues in racks and undesirable provisioning changes in the air conditioning units.
It would thus be beneficial to have the ability to reduce temperature variations in the plenum.